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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Mississippi House speaker Philip Gunn, center, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, right, talk after Gov. Tate Reeves press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, May 7, 2020.

Members of the Mississippi House are expected to file a lawsuit, as early as Wednesday, challenging Gov. Tate Reeves’ partial veto of a bill spending federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Legislative sources said lawmakers also are considering reconvening in Jackson as early as next week to consider overriding some of Reeves’ five vetoes he issued in early July, including his partial veto of the K-12 education budget.

The looming lawsuit and return to Jackson sets up yet another clash between Republican legislative leaders and the Republican governor.

Earlier this year, Reeves sparred with House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, over who should get spending authority of $1.2 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds. The Legislature prevailed. Lawmakers also bucked the will of Reeves when they voted to remove the state flag in June.

Reeves’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Legislators have been waiting for Reeves to call them back in special session to deal at least with Reeves’ partial veto of the education budget and to pass a budget bill for the Department of Marine Resources. DMR was not funded before the Legislature left July 1 because of a disagreement between the House and Senate over Reeves’ authority to spend millions in Gulf restoration funds.

The Constitution gives the governor sole authority to call a special session. But this year legislators passed a resolution giving Gunn and Hosemann the authority to reconvene the Legislature to take up COVID-19 issues. Once in session, if approved by two-thirds of the members, legislators could take up essentially any issue. A two-thirds vote also would be required for any veto override.

There has been speculation about whether Reeves’ partial veto of a bill appropriating federal funds to hospitals and other healthcare providers is constitutional.

The state Constitution gives a governor some line-item veto power, but the parameters of that power have been debated for years and the subject of legal challenges in past administrations. The state Supreme Court has ruled that those line-item veto powers are limited.

“I would want to more thoroughly research it … but when I read the bill with that in  mind, it seemed the veto  was unconstitutional based on the latest precedent in the Leflore County private prisons case,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. Bryan was referring to an early 2000s case when the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a partial by then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove of money going to private prisons.

Bryan, chair of the Senate Public Health Committee, was one of the key architects in the final days of June as legislators finished their work and adjourned after passing the bill to spend $130 million in funds to help health care providers, such as hospitals, and other entities, such as food pantries, with their work fighting the coronavirus. The money was part of $1.25 billion the state received in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

Reeves vetoed $2 million lawmakers directed to the shuttered North Oak Regional Medical Center in Senatobia and $6 million earmarked to the MAGnet Community Health Center to study and try to combat health disparities, such as combating the high impact COVID-19 has inflicted on the African American community. The spending was part of a $130 million bill directing CARES Act money to Mississippi health care and hospitals.

Reeves argued the hospital should not receive the money because it was closed and thus not dealing with coronavirus patients. He also said he was not familiar with the group receiving the funds to try to curb health disparities.

The money for the Senatobia hospital would only be available if reopened before the end of the year. The hospital is located in the district of Republican House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, who over the years has been at odds with Reeves over numerous issues, dating back to Reeves’ terms as lieutenant governor.

In the early 2000s, Musgrove vetoed a portion of the appropriations bill for the Department of Corrections that provided money to operate a private prison in Leflore County.

The court, in a 5-2 ruling, said the governor could not veto restrictions on how those funds were spent. In a complex legal opinion, the Court ruled that Musgrove would have had to vetoed the entire section of the bill providing funds for the Greenville prison.

Bryan was a plaintiff in the 1990s when the Supreme Court ruled then-Gov. Kirk Foridice unconstitutionally vetoed portions of both appropriations and bond bills issuing long-term debt for the state.

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America

Gov. Tate Reeves and Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs speak to the media about the coronavirus during a press conference at the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 26, 2020.

Going against the advice of the state’s top health officer and other Mississippi medical experts, Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday announced admittedly “piecemeal” orders that allow most schools to reopen now even as the state sees record numbers of COVID-19 cases.

“I believe in my heart we have got to get our kids back in school,” Reeves said, and reiterated a recent theme: “I believe it’s better, whenever possible, to allow local leaders to determine plans for their schools.”

Reeves is issuing an executive order to “pump the brakes” for grades seven through 12 in eight COVID-19 “hot spot” counties. The schools in Bolivar, Coahoma, Forrest, George, Hinds, Panola, Sunflower and Washington counties are affected by the executive order, which pushes their start date to Aug. 17.

The order only applies to public schools, and schools that are already slated to reopen virtually can do so. Reeves’ order will require students and staff to wear masks in all schools and he also issued a statewide mask mandate — previously only 37 of 82 counties were under a mask mandate.

A Mississippi Today analysis shows the executive order affects less than 7% of students in the public school system, based on enrollment data from the 2019-20 school year. Many districts in these counties are already planning on a virtual opening or later start date.

The announcement comes as some schools in Mississippi have already reopened traditionally, and the state’s top health officials have come out publicly advocating for the governor to delay the return to the classroom.

“The governor’s plan, in its current form, is reckless and irresponsible,” said Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, which has asked to delay schools opening until at least Sep. 1. “It ignores the advice of the state’s top medical officials and is putting students and educators and their families at risk.”

State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs last week had joined a chorus of other health officials and groups calling for Reeves to delay in-person schooling until early September. Dobbs had called earlier reopening, “crazy,” and said, “There’s nothing magic about August.”

On Tuesday, as he sat with Reeves at a press conference, he was less emphatic and said, “Let’s just behave for a couple of weeks. Our kids have got to get back to school.”

But Dobbs on Tuesday also said, “Quite honestly I believe some of the (schools’) plans could use a lot of work.”

School districts had to choose between in-person, virtual, or hybrid reopenings and submit plans to the Mississippi Department of Education by July 31. Reeves, who is the only person with the authority to delay school at the statewide level, said he spent the last few days reading 598 pages of reopening plans which led him to believe there was cause for an executive order.

“There will be plenty of time for Monday-morning quarterbacking,” Reeves said as he bristled at some media questions Tuesday. “My decisions are in real-time, based on what I think is best for the state of Mississippi.”

The governor acknowledged there was risk in this decision.

“Are there risks? Sure there are. I’m aware of those risks and still believe this is the best decision for our state.”

More than 465,000 children attend public schools in Mississippi, and more than 30,000 teachers and thousands of other staff are in the building with them each day.

Aliyah Shivers teaches fourth grade at Booker T. Washington Elementary in Clarksdale Municipal School District. She is also a parent to two toddler boys and thinks the governor should delay reopening all schools.

“Even though we’re virtual, the teacher may end up going in the classroom, so I’m forced to take my kids to daycare and they’re at risk to bring it back home,” Shivers said Tuesday. “(Reeves says) kids don’t carry the virus as much as adults, but they still can get it and bring it home. It’s just not safe.”

Mississippi’s statistics are not comforting either — Mississippi currently has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in the country and the third-highest daily new case rate. Hospitalizations for the virus continue to rise, and the daily patient rolls nearly doubled in the past month.

“The numbers are constantly rising,” Shivers said. “I don’t see them going down anytime soon and I don’t see us trying to control it and we expect the kids to wear a mask and keep their hands clean and stay away from their friends?”

“Today I was really hoping (Reeves) would say we’re going to go to school virtually all over the state until we start seeing a major decrease in the cases,”

Trent Chess teaches at Coahoma Early College High School. He thinks districts should go virtual for the first nine weeks of school to give the state time for cases to decline.

“I just really think it’s crazy and it’s very risky,” to return to in-person schooling right now, he said. “I think we’re seeing more and more cases and more and more deaths associated with it and we just really don’t need to expose the children any more or us (as educators) any more than what we’re already exposed.”

In Bolivar County, the Cleveland School District has already delayed its hybrid start date to Sept. 8. Parent Latoya Shepard has two children enrolled in the district, and on Tuesday called the governor’s decision “pompous, arrogant and heartless.” Though she understands the governor is doing the best he can, she’d really hoped he would announce an all-virtual return to school until the state started seeing its case level drop, she said.

“My heart goes out to every parent in this state because we don’t know what we’re sending our children into,” she said.

“They have a fire drill, they have a drill for an active shooter is on the campus,” she said. “They have all of these drills, but what are you going to do when a child – are you waiting on a child to die in the district? That is my concern. When is he going to do something?”

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